Unanswered
by Kyra4
Summary: He dove in after her... but why? Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Another year, another Valentine's Day fic exchange story ;o) The link to the exchange is in my profile; there are many, many uber-lovely DM/HG fics there awaiting your persual and reviewage! Hey, I made a new word. Reviewage. Anyway, this little ficlet will contain two chapters and a short epilogue, posted, most of you probably know the drill by now, weekly until complete. Happy reading! Wait, actually it's kind of angsty reading. Oh well, you know what I mean…**

**Valentine for: loveistoxic**

**Title:** Unanswered  
**Author: **Kyra  
**Disclaimer:** neither the characters nor the setting belong to me. My eternal gratitude to Ms. Rowling for so graciously allowing me to borrow, torture and pervert them! ;o)  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings:** sexuality, language, general angst  
**Notes: **I have to thank Alex, my beautiful, brilliant, beta! (I like alliteration. So sue me.)

**Word Count: **approximately 7,700

**Summary: **_He dove in after her – but why?_

**The request I was given to fulfill was as follows:**

REQUEST  
Would you prefer an art or fic valentine? Fic please  
Describe your ideal valentine in as few words as possible: Something darkish and angsty, preferably an NC-17 rating but R is fine too. Something believable and in character for both Draco and Hermione  
Dealbreakers (absolute no-no's): No Harry/Ginny, minimal Ron, (haha sorry I love them all, just not when Draco/Hermione is concerned.) No fluff please!

**So without further ado, here's the story!**

00000

_He dove in after her._

_It would haunt her for years; her waking thoughts and dreams alike. Night after night she'd bolt upright, gasping in one deep, frantic breath after another, remembering the shock of that freezing water closing over her head, so cold it hit her like a physical blow, knocking the air from her lungs. _

_Nearly knocking the life from her body._

_But no – he dove in after her. And she had not one iota of doubt that in so doing, he had saved her life._

_He dove in after her._

_But WHY?_

00000

It was mid-February. It was the final battle against Voldemort. It was on the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And it had already been dragging on for over two full days without pause.

Hermione Granger, like most of the combatants on either side, had been fighting for over two full days without pause.

She was absolutely ragged with exhaustion.

That was how she'd become separated from her companions, and it was how the cunning McNair managed to finally catch her off-guard and get the best of her.

She was literally swaying with fatigue as she picked her way over and around the dozens of bodies that littered the edge of the Hogwarts lake; her head was swimming. She hardly knew what hit her – it was all over in seconds. He had her wand _Accio_'d out of her hand before she fully grasped what was happening, and in the next second had rapped out a quick, perfunctory _Incarcerous_ as well, pinning her arms to her sides with ropes which sprung instantaneously from the tip of his wand.

Then, before she even managed to gather her wits about her enough to scream, he _Silencio_'d her as well. Effectively disarmed, bound and gagged, she had no hope of striking back, either physically _or_ magically. She was well and truly fucked.

A wave of dull horror washed over her as he casually snapped her wand in two and tossed aside the pieces, advancing on her with his own wand trained on her chest. She'd had no illusions about the fact that she might not leave the battlefield alive – she was an innately practical girl, after all – she'd reconciled herself to the possibility of death.

But Merlin, not like this, not so… so… _alone_. She glanced around frantically, but could see nothing moving anywhere around her except for her soon-to-be murderer. The battlefield was shrouded in a dense, low, swirling mist – the byproduct of Voldemort's contingent of Dementors. It obscured everything except for her very immediate surroundings, and muffled all sound. The gentle lapping of the lake against the small outcropping upon which she stood, the crunch of McNair's footfalls on the gravelly, icy ground and her own harsh, frightened breathing were the only sounds she could hear.

Until he spoke.

"Well well, Harry Potter's Golden Girl," he sneered viciously, pausing to spit on the frozen ground at her feet, "what _shall_ I do with you? Our lord has instructed us not to trouble with prisoners, and you're hardly worth dulling my blade, or wasting the effort of an Unforgivable curse." He spat again. "Filthy little bitch. So let's just think a moment, shall we?"

She knew that he was pondering the most painful and horrific deaths his warped and evil mind could conceive of – and this was confirmed a moment later when he grinned maliciously. He shifted his eyes from hers to the freezing waters of the lake behind her, then back again.

'I say, mudblood, fancy a swim?"

He flicked his wand at her and she staggered – glancing down in alarm that was rapidly approaching panic, she saw that two small but incredibly heavy weights had just attached themselves to her wrists. She guessed they each weighed thirty pounds minimum – there were two more at her ankles. The four of them together at least doubled her weight.

"Who knows?" McNair said conversationally, as she raised dark, despairing eyes back to his face, "perhaps your little friends will survive long enough to find the pieces of your wand. Perhaps, not immediately seeing your body, it will occur to them to search the lake. Perhaps what they find there will be what breaks your precious Potter for once and all. You could help our cause yet, little girl."

He took a step backward. "And now, mudblood, you've wasted enough of my valuable time. Good bye."

And, not bothering to invoke magic this time, he simply kicked her squarely in the stomach with all the strength he could muster.

The pain was incredible – made all the more so by the fact that the bottoms of McNair's heavy boots were cleated, to help their wearer gain better purchase in the ice and snow. And then she was falling backward, as he'd intended, and then she hit the water – water so cold it seemed to burn her with an icy fire – and then she was sinking.

Away from light – away from hope – away from life.

She hit the bottom quickly – the lake was shallow here, no more than twelve or fifteen feet deep. Hardly deeper than her parents' swimming pool at home, in which she had frolicked and played nearly from infancy - but most certainly deep enough to kill when one was bound and weighted down. Oh, yes.

She stared up as long as she could at the air, at the sky above her. She saw McNair's dark, hunched shape leaning over the water, peering down; she couldn't tell whether he could make her out in the murky water or not. Then he turned and disappeared.

It was a ripping, clawing, tearing sort of cold, the water down here – and her lungs were on fire. She had only seconds left. She remembered what McNair had said about her wand, about the possibility of Harry and Ron finding her here.

_Don't let them find me here_, she thought frantically; _don't let me be what breaks them. Please God, don't let them break at all. Let them fight, and let them win, and let them remember me, but don't let them find me like this, not ever, not like this_. And then, with the light above her fading, her desperation succumbing to resignation, the screaming cold in her limbs reducing to a dull, aching numbness, she gave herself up completely and began to pray.

_Our… our Father… who art… art in… in…_

Her first childhood prayer – that's what she returned to now. But she couldn't remember the words. Her mind was shutting down. Her eyes began to roll back.

And then he dove in after her.

00000

She felt, more than saw, the disturbance in the shallow water when he plunged in. With an immense act of will she forced her eyes back into focus for just a few more seconds, and saw a blurred shape swimming toward her with brisk, purposeful strokes. His wand, lit against the watery gloom, was clamped in his teeth.

Reaching her, he grabbed her by the shoulders, took his wand in hand and shouted something that, garbled as it sounded underwater, must have been _Finite Incantatum_, because McNair's restraints and weights instantly disappeared. She tried to narrow her eyes and figure out who this was – all she could seem to make out was hair the color of… of _snow?_... but it was no good. Her focus was gone and her consciousness was following it. The agony in her lungs was unendurable. Even as he wrapped an arm firmly around her body, holding her against him, and kicked powerfully off from the lake bed, rocketing them both upward, her body, unable to hold out any longer, gave a desperate, involuntary heave – pulling for air and finding only water.

She was practically convulsing as they broke the surface – he nearly lost his grip on her. "Damn it, Granger, you silly bint," she thought she heard him growl, "you couldn't have held out for _one more bloody second!?_" Then he was making for the shore, dragging her with him.

Stumbling, he pulled her from the water and they crashed together to the small, pebbly, half-frozen beach. Without any conscious awareness of it, she was holding onto him for dear life, arms wrapped tightly about him and hands fisted, white-knuckled, in the sodden fabric of his shirt. He fell on his back, already starting to shiver, with a grunted "umph" – she landed atop him, draped across his chest and coughing so hard now that she was practically retching.

She was back on dry ground, in the light, the air – but still water filled her lungs.

"Granger. _Granger_." He was sitting up now, prying her hands from his clothes, pushing her off of him. She curled into a little ball on her side, the lake water lapping at her ankles, and coughed so hard she saw bursts of light before her eyes.

"God_damn_ it, Granger, you want to bring everyone in a quarter-mile radius down on us? _Quietus!_" Nothing happened. And then – "Aw, fuck. Fuck _me_. My wand!"

Hermione dragged her head around long enough to catch a glimpse of her rescuer's wand which was, much like her own at the moment, snapped into a pair of miserable, dejected, thoroughly useless pieces. How had that happened? It had been fine in the water. The damage must have come during their rather… bumpy landing on the shore.

"I broke my wand for you," he said slowly, in a voice suffused with horror, through teeth that were beginning to chatter. "I broke… my fucking… _wand_ for you. _Now_ what are we supposed to do?"

It was then that she recognized first the voice – and then, her eyes widening with shock, the face – and the unmistakable hair – as well.

But this couldn't _be_. There was just no way. Was she imagining things, hallucinating? She had _not_ just been pulled from a watery grave by –

"M-muh-Mal-foy?" she managed, between hacking coughs and through teeth that were, like his, now chattering violently. She pushed herself up onto her knees, keeping one hand braced against the ground, the other arm wrapped around herself, pressed to her middle. "Wh-hut are you – ?"

He sent her a pale, sidelong glare, glanced back down at the pieces of wand in his hand, and then, with a snarl of furious disgust, hurled them into the water. He raised a hand to his face, pushing his sopping, near-colorless hair back out of his eyes. There was absolutely no mistaking, through appearance, voice, or mannerisms, who he was.

The last time she'd seen him had been nearly a year ago, and in his Hogwarts uniform. But she _knew_ who Draco Malfoy was. What she _couldn't_ wrap her mind around was what he'd just done.

He was the enemy. There was no mistaking that, either. Even if it hadn't been common knowledge that he'd thrown in his lot with the Death Eaters, there was the very immediate fact that he was attired as one right now – in the black garb of the enemy and with – she could make out just the tip of it peeking from beneath his left sleeve – the Dark Mark on his arm.

But McNair had said the Death Eaters weren't interested in prisoners. So what in the _hell_ was he playing at?

She was wandless – but so was he. They were both soaking wet and half-frozen. She figured the playing field had evened out rather nicely. As well as could be hoped for, at any rate. She cast about on the ground for something she could use as a weapon, but there was nothing likely nearby.

_Shit._ What did he want with her anyway?

He was following her with his eyes; she saw him realize exactly what it was that she was doing. His eyes narrowed. "Oh for Christ's _sake_, Granger," he ground out through teeth that were clenched against the cold, "you don't think I went through all that just to kill you _now? _Are you bloody stupid?"

Well, _that_ stung. If there was one thing Hermione Granger was _not_ accustomed to being called, it was 'bloody stupid'. She opened her mouth to give him a piece of her mind, too, but all that came from that was another debilitating round of coughing – this one worse than any that had come before.

"Granger." She heard his voice as if from very far away now. "Granger, _shit!_"

And then he was beside her; his arms, surprisingly strong considering his somewhat slight, if sinewy, build, wrapping around her – finding her midsection, just below her ribs – and then squeezing hard; helping her to force a great wave of water up and out.

"That's it, Granger, get it all out. You'll have called attention to this place; we need to be moving on."

Finally it seemed like she was gaining some purchase over her breathing again. She retched up another wave of lakewater – then another still. Merlin, how had she even taken that much _in?_ And he held her steady through it all.

His arms around her reminded her of Harry's – they had the same build, the two of them. It was why they'd always been so evenly matched, both as Quidditch Seekers and as duelists. Perhaps it was this familiar, comforting sensation, along with her physical and mental distress at the moment, and the freezing, biting cold, which allowed her to sink back against him once the heaving had subsided, her head clunking gently against his collarbone, her eyes falling shut with exhaustion.

She was half-gone in a swoon. Given another moment or two, she might have slipped fully into unconsciousness. But Draco had other ideas.

He gave her a single, sharp shake. "Snap the hell out of it, Granger; we've got to move." As if to punctuate his words, a shout sounded somewhere off to their left, only to be answered by another, much closer-sounding exclamation vaguely behind and to their right. Draco swore under his breath. The low-lying mist was fatally deceptive; some sounds were magnified; others reduced. The shouts could be coming from a hundred feet away, or only ten. One thing was for sure; her friends were his enemies and vice versa. So the two of them, huddled together like this, would more than likely encounter serious trouble no matter _who_ it was that found them.

He staggered to his feet, shaking so hard now with the cold that he was nearly as debilitated as she. Nevertheless, he managed to haul her up after him.

"C'mon. We've got to get back up the embankment. I left something up there we'll be wanting."

He helped her to hook one arm around his neck, wrapped his own arm tightly around her waist, and half-dragged, half-carried her along with him as he started to walk.

00000

They reached Draco's invisibility cloak – for such was the item he'd been referring to – only just in time. It lay where he had shed it just before diving into the lake, but no sooner had he started to crouch down to retrieve it than the shouts came again – and this time they sounded close indeed. More than that, a dark shape actually began to materialize out of the mist, alarmingly nearby.

Draco instantly threw himself flat on the ground, yanking Hermione down with him and clamping a hand over her mouth to muffle any startled sound she might make – but she managed to stay silent except for the chattering of her teeth. In a flash he had them both covered in the cloak, drawing it quickly over them with his free hand. The hand that was covering the lower half of her face remained, and moreover, he now proceeded to shove a finger _into_ her mouth, wedging it between her teeth.

"To stop your teeth from rattling," he hissed in her ear when she stiffened against him, gathering herself to resist. "Now lie _still!_"

Really, in her state, that wasn't hard to do. Her whole body was shaking, but he was holding her so hard against him that it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. She let her eyes fall shut. She could hear footsteps crunching nearer; feel Draco's arms tightening, involuntarily it seemed, still further. Despite the clear and present danger, though, she was slipping away again… it might have almost been comfortable… if she hadn't been so bone-chillingly, deep-down _cold_…

It seemed like no more than a heartbeat's worth of time had passed before he was dragging her to her feet again – but she realized, in bewilderment, that it must have been longer, because there was no sign of whoever it was whose footfalls had been approaching only, it seemed, a second ago. Confirming this sensation of lost time, he was snarling in her ear, "don't you black out on me again, Granger, goddamn it, don't you fucking do it. I don't want to leave your arse behind, but I don't wanna die, either; are you bloody well hearing me?"

He seemed to expect an answer to this, so she managed to force out a small "um-hm."

"Now," he muttered, more to himself than to her, it seemed, "we have to get indoors somehow before we both freeze solid. But where, _where?_"

"Hag-g-grid's?" she suggested.

He gave his head a single, curt shake as he covered them both in the cloak again (if only invisibility cloaks generated just a little bit more _warmth_…)

"No good. Burnt down. Saw it."

_Saw it, or DID it?_ She still had no idea what he was playing at, but he was the enemy, damn it, and she'd do well to remember it. Merlin, why _was_ he doing this?

But in an immediate sense, a survival sense, a better question was, where _could_ the two of them, defenseless and debilitated with cold as they were, hole up for a while, away from the combatants of _either_ side, out of the icy February wind, and just _warm up_ a bit? Because she didn't have the strength to break from him right now. And she wasn't entirely sure she had the heart for it, either. She sensed that she was practically the only thing holding him up at the moment, just as he was the only thing supporting her. Enemy or not, he was in very real danger of freezing to _death_ out here, and all because he'd jumped into the lake to save _her_. So she couldn't just abandon him, even given the opportunity. She simply couldn't.

"Um… Q-Quidditch equip-p-ment shed?"

He paused for a moment, clearly giving this some thought. Then; "Right. N-not bad, Granger. Not bad at all. Les'go."


	2. Chapter 2

In terms of unobtrusive shelter, the Quidditch equipment shed was almost perfectly suited to their needs. It was relatively nearby, and though it was commonly referred to as a shed, in reality it was more of a dug-out, sunk over halfway into a low, sloping hillside so that it was mostly underground and really only noticeable from a certain angle of approach. The thick, low-lying mist that swathed the grounds offered further concealment; it was extremely unlikely that anyone would notice the entrance unless they were actively seeking it, as Draco and Hermione were.

"Almost as good as a D-his-illusionment charm," Hermione murmured from between violently chattering teeth, as Draco shouldered open the door.

The interior was small, dark, musty, and slightly less cold than outdoors. Weak, watery winter light filtered in through chinks in the structure's single outward-facing wall, but at least the wind couldn't reach them here. The rest of the rough walls were lined with racks of battered school-property broomsticks; dusty shelves were crammed with bottles and jars of wood oil, blackened polishing cloths, and assorted school-owned protective gear, goggles and gloves and such, which had seen better days. In the 1960's, by the look of the stuff. Dusty boxes containing the various balls utilized in the game were stacked in the corners. There was a narrow aisle down the center of all this clutter that would afford just enough room for the two of them to sit side-by-side on the packed-earth floor with their backs against a low-hung rack of brooms.

Draco pushed Hermione in ahead of him. Without his support, she stumbled; her legs too weak, too shaky, to support her. Grasping at the equipment shelves to either side, she lowered herself to her knees, then folded into a sitting position on the floor. Draco, for his part, hung back to deal with the door – barring it with a broomstick he'd seized from a nearby rack, then further blocking it by wedging wooden crates of Quaffles and Bludgers in front of it. Only when the crates were stacked chest-high did he turn toward her – and virtually collapse.

His back against the boxes, he slid down them to the floor, landing hard enough to make his teeth rattle – if they hadn't been already, that is. He was breathing now in shallow, rapid pants. She realized, somewhat detachedly, that she was as well. She could hardly feel her hands or feet anymore; the stabbing, pins-and-needles cold was receding from her extremities, to be replaced by a dully aching numbness. This should have been a relief, but she knew better. She had read about the symptoms of hypothermia at some point, although she couldn't place exactly where or when, or even why, at the moment. Her thought processes were slowing down – her mind becoming as numb as her body. She was groggy; her brain ever more hopelessly clouded with each passing moment. Merlin, she was in trouble.

They both were.

Draco was sitting with his knees pulled up, elbows resting on them. Now he ran both hands through his straggly, half-dry, silver-white hair, shoving it out of his face – even in its current sorry state, it looked softer than corn-silk. This done, he wrapped his arms tightly around himself and folded over forward, so that his head rested, face down, on his updrawn knees. His whole body, she saw, was shaking now – and hard.

Why had he put himself in this position for her? Why?

She tried to ask, even though she was finding it inordinately difficult to form even single words, much less string multiples together.

"M-Muh-hal-foy. Why… why d-did-"

He looked up; those eerie, pale eyes of his like mercury in the dim light.

"Had my… reasons. G-Granger."

They stared at each other for a long time in silence. Despite everything, he looked… defiant. She glared at him, frustrated with his refusal to reveal a motive. But after a moment or two, even this began to pass. She was having no better luck holding onto her anger than she was in keeping track of her scattered thoughts. And after all, whatever his initial reasoning had been, they were in this, now, together.

His lips, she noticed, were blue.

Something had to be done.

She raised both her hands to her temples and, with some difficulty, clenched her fingers hard in the riot of wet, bedraggled curls there. It was a gesture she sometimes made when she had to think her way through particularly difficult problems or scenarios. It was as if her body was reminding her mind to concentrate, _concentrate_.

"Malfoy, we have… to w-arm… up."

"C-hant concentrate… enough for… wand… wandless magic," he gritted out. "Al-already tried."

"Malfoy. We're d-hye-ing. We're both dying."

His eyes, locked on hers, never wavered. He said nothing.

A heartbeat passed. Then another, and another. Finally, slowly, almost dreamily – _everything_ was taking on a lethargic, dream-like, almost surreal quality now – she said, "there's anuh-nother way. A m-Muggle way." She looked around the little storage area with dazed, barely-focused eyes. "We'll need… um… b-blankets."

Draco simply looked at her a moment longer. Then, slowly and obviously with difficulty, he dragged himself to his feet. Stepping carefully over her, he made his way to the rear of the shed. He was moving almost normally, but there was a certain sense of jerky un-coordination lurking just below the surface of his movements that told her it was only with great effort that he was projecting this outward sense of normalcy and control.

He seemed to know exactly where he was going, and it occurred to her that, having played school Quidditch for nearly as long as Harry, he probably did indeed know this room and its contents quite well. Reaching the back wall, he stretched up and pulled something – a bundle of some sort – from the very top shelf. He dropped it almost immediately to the floor – fabric, she saw, slipping from between his fingers, which were undoubtedly as stiff and numb as her own.

Then his legs buckled and he crashed sideways into the wall. Grabbing at a rack for support, he managed to slow his fall somewhat, but even so hit the floor on his hands and knees with a jarring force that Hermione knew had to be painful.

She began, automatically, to ask if he was all right – but the expression on his face stopped her, well, cold. That defiant look was back in his eyes; a look which said, as clearly as any words, that even the least outward display of sympathy or concern on her part would be… rather less than welcome.

_I am NOT WEAK, _those eyes seemed to say, _and don't you DARE imply that I am._

"They're for equipment," he bit out. "N-not very good."

Hermione could see that for herself. There were about half a dozen wadded-up blankets there in shades of brown and grey; rough, scratchy material; dirty, moth-eaten and musty – clearly not intended for human use. They were also, quite possibly, the difference between life and death for her and Malfoy both.

Hermione thought they were absolutely beautiful.

"C'mon," she said, "we have to get… um… close. And… take off your wet clothes."

He stared at her incredulously. "What, and freeze faster? You're mental, Granger."

She shook her head in frustration. He was going to make her spell it out, then.

"N-no. Our clothes… _are_ making us freeze faster. We have to… to get them off, all of them." She was staring straight down in her lap, now, unable to look at him as she explained. "And then we ha-have to… um… warm each other up… skin to… s-skin."

His breathing had become so shallow and rapid now that his every syllable was forced out as a short, ragged exhalation.

"You – shitting – me – Gran – ger?"

"There's no time… to debate this, Malfoy." And she peeled her sopping-wet shirt off over her head and flung it away into a far corner.

He stared at her in stark disbelief as she proceeded, with teeth-gritted difficulty, her coordination almost nil by now, to struggle out of her trousers as well. Then, with stiff fingers, she dragged the discarded invisibility cloak over to her, tucked it about herself under her arms, and reached behind herself to unclasp her bra.

She couldn't do it. Her fingers were like wood; she lacked the strength even to keep her arms twisted behind her body like that. In fact, the whole enterprise was making her feel rather lightheaded.

"Malfoy," she whispered, "you ha-have to help… m-me." Eyelids fluttering, she slumped suddenly, bonelessly, back against the rough, cold wall. She was gone in a swoon again.

"Granger!"

Less than half-conscious and unable to move, she was dimly aware of Draco scrambling over to her, swearing a blue streak the whole time, the rude words barely intelligible between the chattering of his teeth and his own shortness of breath. His hands were on her then, his fingers like ice; she shuddered violently as, not troubling himself about the clasp at all, he yanked her bra none too gently right up over her arms and head, tossing it carelessly over his shoulder to join the rest of her sad, sodden clothes.

She didn't really even register, at the moment, the fact that in so doing he caused the invisibility cloak to fall, pooling around her waist and leaving her upper body completely bare to his gaze.

He didn't even skip a beat, though. He pulled her toward him, holding her to his chest with one arm as he quickly and clumsily spread the tatty old blankets out on the floor. This done, he lowered her onto her back in the middle of the blanket-nest he'd created and then proceeded to hook his thumbs into the waistband of her panties and tug them over her hips, down her legs, and off. Tossing the invisibility cloak over her like a sheet, he hurriedly, shakily, stripped himself.

Slipping under the cloak beside her he gathered her up against him and wrapped first the cloak, then the equipment blankets, tightly around them; virtually cocooning them both. The silken fabric of the invisibility cloak went a long way toward mitigating the moldy, scratchy unpleasantness of the old blankets.

There followed a long, long time of simply lying still; pressed hard against one another, in nearly identical states of hazy semi-consciousness as their bodies, wrapped in layer upon layer of heavy fabric that was, however distasteful, at least undeniably warm, ever so slowly began to approach normalcy once again. It might have been an hour – it might have been a day. She would never know with anything approaching certainty.

The first thing Hermione really noticed was her shivers subsiding – not entirely, mind, but at least she longer felt as if she was being shaken apart. Her breathing eased a little too, and these two things, combined, allowed much of the tension to ebb from her body. She relaxed more fully against Draco, her body greedily seeking heat from every inch of his skin that touched her own.

She would never, later, be able to pinpoint exactly when things had… changed. When it had stopped being merely about using each other as vital sources of warmth, and had become somehow… more. And if she had trouble pinpointing the when, she could certainly never explain to herself, with any clarity whatsoever, the _why_ of the matter. What on earth could have possessed her – Hermione Granger, pure as the driven snow, golden girl of the Light, practically engaged to the Boy Who Lived – to lose herself in the arms of the enemy?

And really, there was no rationalizing it. She was in a state of extreme duress. In the midst of a battle that had raged on for days already; sleep-deprived, physically and emotionally exhausted, and only just recovering from a – _very_ – near death experience, she was looking for comfort, and she found it in the arms of her rescuer. The arms of a Death Eater.

And why would Draco, who wore Voldemort's insignia branded into his left forearm, why would he allow _himself_ to consort with the enemy either? Why on earth "sully" himself with a girl he supposedly viewed as inherently dirty; inferior; practically sub-human?

Why, indeed? It was destined to remain as much a mystery as the reason he had risked his own life to save hers in the first place.

But all of this reflection was for a later date. Hermione wasn't wondering about any of it in that moment. All she knew right then was that she'd been drowning and he'd saved her; she'd been freezing and he was warming her. There was strength and security – however illusory, however fleeting – in the arms wrapped so tightly around her, and she responded to it.

If forced to put her finger on the moment in which huddling for warmth became something more intimate, she supposed it was when she turned in his arms to face him. They had spooning until then; his stomach to her back, but as the time had passed, blood slowly returning to her frozen extremities and causing them to tingle distractingly, she had become restless; tossing lightly within his arms and finally turning over completely – no easy feat with the blankets still wrapped so tightly about them both – to face him.

His arms, which had temporarily loosened their grip to allow her some freedom of movement while she shifted, tightened again. One of his hands was splayed out low on her back; the other between her shoulder blades. This latter hand he now moved up to her head, twining his fingers through her tumult of hair and holding her pressed against his shoulder, her face nestled into the hollow of his throat.

And even so, nothing more might have come from it, except that now Hermione, still greedy for his warmth, wrapped her own arms around him right back, and then proceeded to sling a leg over his hip as well, hooking him closer still, virtually molding her body to his.

It was this that galvanized Draco, finally, into action. He seemed to shudder all down the length of his body, crushing her to him until she could barely breathe. The hand that had been resting against her back dragged lower, cupping her bottom, squeezing; yanking her hips against his almost bruisingly hard. She gasped in shock and his lips crashed into hers – searchingly, hungrily. And before she fully comprehended even what _he_ was doing, let alone her response to it, she was kissing him back, and hard.

His lips, she noticed, on some strangely detached and analytical level, were still cool – but his mouth was hot. His hands too, were warm now, moving restlessly against her bare skin. And she'd been _so_ cold, and _so_ close to death, and now, suddenly, she was so very warm, and alive, and tingly right down to her toes, and that was all that really mattered to her in that moment; any niggling little thoughts of right or wrong were swept away by the tide of it.

It _felt_ right, Merlin help her. It felt… almost preordained, somehow.

Her fingers were tangling in his soft, pale hair – it felt like damp, rumpled silk; so different from the tangled mass of her own at the moment. She pushed her tongue into the warmth of his mouth, craving it. And then she became conscious of a new heat; he was… _growing_… pressed hard against her stomach.

He drank in her surprised "_mmph!_" never missing a beat, then ripped his lips from hers and dragged them, slowly, over her chin and down her throat, dropping decadently hot kisses as he went. Hermione, in a warm, delicious haze, some of her inborn curiosity now returning to her, slid a hand in between them and grasped the source of the heat that was pressing against her body – wrenching a shuddery groan from him as she did so.

She bit on her lip, chewing it gently – an unconscious gesture she often made when assimilating new information. She had never touched a man… um… _there_ before – not, at any rate, skin-to-skin. It was… almost indescribable. Soft and hard all at once, like satin over steel. And above all, _warm_. Beautifully, brilliantly, _blazingly_ warm. And she wanted that warmth – wanted it for herself, to incorporate it into her own being. Barely understanding what she was doing, operating largely on instinct now, she squeezed.

"Ughhn –!" His whole body went taut. The expression on his face and the sound that was wrenched out of him were almost of pain. Almost… but not exactly. Then his hand closed over her wrist, pulling _her_ hand away, and at the same time he rolled her decisively onto her back, releasing her wrist and catching her slim thighs in his hands, spreading them as far as the cocoon of blankets would allow and insinuating himself gracefully, easily, between them.

She stared up at him, pulse racing now, breathing hard – their eyes caught and held for a long, long time in silence, the quick, harsh bursts of their breath the only sound. His face was unreadable in the gloom, his starlight-colored fringe, almost dry now, falling forward – nearly, though not quite, brushing her skin; his eyes, the color of rainclouds, smoldering.

She felt her breath catch as he shifted, never breaking eye contact, aligning their bodies with perfect precision – with practiced skill – and she realized, really _understood_, what it was that they were about to do.

And then, just as that understanding, that acceptance, caused a spark of liquid heat to ignite deep within her _own_ body, he plunged into her, eyes still locked on hers, claiming and filling her with one driving thrust.

A ragged cry was ripped from her as her whole body arched like a bow, pushing back against him, inadvertently deepening the penetration and sealing, _locking_ them together. Surprise flashed in his pale eyes and with a muttered oath he clamped a hand over her mouth; over the entirety of her lower face. Then he went very, very still, allowing her to adjust as she stared up at him in shock, tears now leaking from the corners of her eyes to streak down her temples and lose themselves in her already damp hair.

"Shhhh."

He offered no apology per se, instead waiting until it was clear that she wouldn't scream again, compromising the secret of their location should anyone be close enough to hear, then dragged his hand away from her mouth; over to her cheek, cupping it for a moment, and then up to her temple, smoothing her hair away from her face – a curiously gentle gesture.

"I didn't know," he said simply, quietly. "Do you want to stop?"

She said nothing for a moment; didn't trust herself to speak. She was trembling from head to foot, but not with cold; not anymore. Just with… sensation. She tried to get her breathing under control; wetted her lips; swallowed. Then, slowly, ever so slightly, still never taking her eyes from his, she shook her head.

Come what may, she didn't want to stop. What point was there in stopping _now_, when they'd already come this far, when she'd already handed her virginity to a Death Eater whose motives she knew nothing about? And anyway, though there was pain there, there was something else too, beneath it – a hint, a promise, of something exquisitely, inarticulately good, if she were willing to see this through.

And perhaps most simply, most basically of all, there was the _warmth_ of it; the delicious, throbbing heat of him deep inside her body. She didn't want to give that up – the very thought of it made her feel bereft somehow.

"You're sure." He was asking her a question, but it came out as a statement. She bit her lip – nodded. For better or for worse, she was sure.

He lowered his head so that his mouth moved against hers when next he spoke. "Stop worrying your lip, Granger." And then he kissed her again, pulling her swollen lower lip into his mouth, saving her from herself. At the same time he withdrew from her almost completely, causing her to whimper plaintively at the loss of heat, of… fulfillment… then, after holding himself perfectly still for a heartbeat or two, slid home once more – wrenching a sobbing little groan from her as she arched instinctively to meet him yet again.

Then they were moving together, in a rocking rhythm that was beyond anything she'd ever imagined, and yet came as naturally to her now as breathing; meeting him thrust for thrust, striving with him toward the common goal of blissful, sweet release, Hermione now wrapping her legs high up around his waist, causing _him_ to groan as he tore his lips from hers and buried his face in the soft place where her shoulder met her neck, licking and sucking her; bruising her, marking her. They came together, her orgasm crashing over her like a tsunami of pleasure and pain as he spent himself with a series of quick, hard thrusts deep, deep inside of her, leaving her gasping, shaking like a leaf in its wake. And warm, so _warm_, from the tips of her fingers to the tip of her nose to the tips of her toes – warm all over, but nowhere more so than where the liquid fire of his seed was spreading, deep in the core of her.


	3. Epilogue

"Malfoy, wait."

He paused in front of the door, his back to her. He was dressed again; they both were. He'd used a quick, wandless spell to dry their clothing – in the aftermath of their coupling, thoroughly warm and fully functional again, they had both regained the physical and mental strength and coordination needed to perform simple wandless magic. Hopefully this crucial ability would now see each of them through to their respective safe places.

He had dressed without a word – neither one of them had spoken at all, in fact, since he'd told her to stop worrying her lip. But when it appeared that he really did intend to simply walk out of their little sanctuary and back into the fray without saying anything further to her, anything at _all_ – well, she couldn't let him do that, just _leave_ like that. There was still so much she wanted – _needed_ to know.

He was waiting for her to continue. And she could see in the tense lines of his body that he wasn't going to wait much longer.

"Malfoy…" all of a sudden, she was painfully unsure of how to proceed. Might as well just spit it out then, the question that was twisting inside of her, gnawing at her already. She needed an answer. She _deserved_ an answer. "Malfoy, _why?_ I have a right to know why. You owe me that much."

Slowly, he turned back to face her.

He looked at her for a long time, his face impassive. And then, finally, just when she was beginning to think that she wouldn't get an answer at all – "_Owe_ you? I don't owe you jack, Granger." His voice was flat. "I saved your life, so don't you ever imply that I owe you more than that. If your… _Muggle warming technique_, as you so charmingly call it… happened to save mine back, then at the most we're even and I still don't owe you a thing. As for my motives –" he gave a casual, one-shouldered shrug – "who knows? Maybe I was working on higher orders; orders that clod McNair knew nothing about. Maybe the Dark Lord has other plans for you, close to Potter as you are." He paused for a moment, watching for her reaction. When she said nothing to this, merely tilting up her chin in silent, angry defiance, he went on. "Then again, maybe I was only looking out for myself. Maybe I saw a chance to get you under a life-debt, so I could use you as a trump card in the unlikely event that your side wins this bloody war. You'd make a hell of an insurance policy in that case, Granger." Once more he paused before continuing. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, quieter; and yet somehow far more intense. His slate-grey gaze, too, now seemed to pierce right through her. "Or maybe, Granger, just maybe the truth is, I've actually been in love with you for years, and I've been shadowing you for the entire battle, trying to keep you from harm's way. It's possible." Those mercurial eyes were boring holes her in her. Her lips parted in shock – she almost felt as if she were underwater again; she could hardly breathe.

Slowly, never breaking eye contact with her, he bent to gather up the silvery puddle of cloth that was his invisibility cloak. Straightening up again, he graced her with a sardonic little smile as he turned once again toward the door. "Stranger things have happened. Right?"

She didn't answer him. Her mind was reeling. She wasn't at all sure that she could form coherent words at the moment. He shoved aside the crates that had been barricading the door, then swung it open. Outside, all was darkness, and eerie silence. The silence of a battlefield from whence the battle has largely moved on; a battlefield that is rapidly becoming a boneyard.

He didn't step through the doorway yet – but he didn't turn back toward her either. He seemed to hesitate like that for just a fraction of a moment. Then; "see you around, Granger," he said softly. And vanished into the mist.

00000

"_WAIT!"_

_She sat straight up in bed, as she had a hundred times before, gasping and shaking, with a cry on her lips and his voice – "See you around, Granger," echoing in her head as clearly as if he'd just spoken those words a heartbeat ago, right there in her room._

"_Wait," she whispered again, but the phantom Malfoy from her dream was long gone; into the mists, into the ether, away beyond the veil. 'See you around,' he'd said, but she hadn't seen him around; she'd never seen him again. He'd been killed the next day, in the climax of the battle… leaving her behind with the awful, gut-clenchingly cold feeling of a profound debt unpaid._

_With a tiny, grey-eyed daughter that Harry, now tossing and muttering fitfully in the bed beside her (his sleep had been every bit as troubled as hers since the war), had gallantly offered to raise as his own, no questions asked._

_And with a host of burning questions that would never, now, be answered._

"_Oh Malfoy, please wait."_

_He dove in after her – but why?_

_HAD he loved her? Stranger things had happened. Harry was reaching up now, still ninety percent asleep, to pull her back down, into the warm security of his arms._

_And she would never know. She would never know._

00000

Fin


End file.
